Saturday, September 01, 2007

Strikke-along signups!!

Yes, it's that time. The time for us all to lose our minds and join in another of the crazy knit-alongs around here. We officially begin October first, but I like having a decent lead-in for knit-alongs so people can be better prepared for them.

The original idea I had, back in the spring, was for everyone to choose a pattern from "Norsk Strikkedesign" and knit one. I thought that was a good theme, and it'd produce a lot of kickass sweaters/jumpers. (For those who don't have the book, there is a listing of kits available, here, that gives you a good idea of the content of the book.) I love just about every pattern in the book - with color shifts in some cases - and I figured everyone else would agree, and off we'd go.

Then I did the Steek-Along. And while the Steek-Along rocked, and was truly awesome, and I'm proud as hell of the three people who joined in and held on to the bitter end, the fact remains, it was three people. A pretty small group. And I knew that if I did something like "choose a pattern from Norsk Strikkedesign", I'd have a small group again, because let's be honest, those patterns are hard core.

So I started turning over the idea of having some kind of knit-along that EVERYONE could join. And I thought about the Scandinavian influences on knitting in general, and I thought we could do something Scandinavian-themed and still include everyone, if we tried hard enough.

I have given you this long lead-in so that you understand the reasoning behind the madness, when you read the eligibility list.

YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO JOIN IN THE STRIKKE-ALONG IF:

-You are knitting anything from Norsk Strikkedesign, of course. Or Poetry in Stitches. Or, hell, anything by any Scandinavian designer (Elsebeth Lavold for instance) or any Scandinavian design house (Dale of Norway, Garnstudio, etc).

-You live in Scandinavia or are of Scandinavian descent. Or speak a Scandinavian language. Or have blonde hair or blue eyes. Or red hair.

-You are knitting a pattern or using yarn from anywhere the Vikings ever settled. (North America, Greenland, Iceland, the UK, Ireland, Russia, most of Europe, and all those islands in the North Sea and North Atlantic.)

-You are knitting socks, a hat, a scarf, or mittens. Because it gets cold up there, and they wear that stuff.

-Heck, if you're knitting anything warm, for that matter.

-You have ever eaten lutefisk or drunk aquavit. Or that rotted shark stuff from Iceland. Or dairy products. Or, um, any other Scandinavian food. Pass the lebkuchen.

That should include everyone. If not, let me know, and I'll make up a loophole for you.

With this kind of two-sided history, I made up two buttons. I figure we can use one button for anyone hard core enough to knit something from Norsk Strikkedesign, and use the other for eveyrone else joining in. Of course if you like one button more than the other, just use it; I'm not gonna police blogs and tell people they're using the wrong buttons.

The Norsk Strikkedesign button:

The background, in case you're wondering, is from the Princess-Line Gansey that I'm halfway through knitting.

The let's all join button:The curlicue is the prow of a Viking long ship from the Oslo Ship Musuem. The photo itself is from "Sue and Jerry's Adventure in Scandinavia", a page that popped up while I was doing an image search for Viking long ships. Their photo was just what I wanted (in fact, the original contains them, too). No idea who Sue and Jerry are, but if anybody knows them, tell 'em I said hello and thanks for the photo.

Anyone who REALLY wants to get into this, there's a handy translation page here. You can use Scandinavian knitting terms (from the language of your choice) for the entire month of October. Or the rest of your life. If you don't already.

FOR THE HTML CHALLENGED: I've been trying to put the code in the blog without it showing up as a photo, and it's SO not working... in fact, it's a nightmare. So e-mail me and I'll send you the code and you can cut and paste it into your template.

I want to join. I have never done stranded color knitting but I want to try the snowflakes socks in IK's fall magazine. I figure they have snowflakes in Scandinavia, right? Maybe this way I will be brave enough to try something I have always wanted to try but have been afraid of. What's the worst that could happen?

I'm in.... and I've been in from the first time loopholes were mentioned. I'm going work on a pair of mittens using a Nordic Fiber Arts kit. Given my current luck with FOs, I'm only committing to work on them. But I'm excited :)

I think I left a random comment about this on another entry of yours, but count me in! I definitely have to make new Scandinavian mittens for my whole family and I'm going to try some gloves this year as well.

I was wondering which patterns from the book would be suitable for someone who has done no colour work at the moment (I have a felted bag that I could do this month but that would be my experience). I'm willing to do something a bit above my experience level and have intermediate knitting skills I think.

In case other Canadians are looking for the book: amazon.ca is more expensive than amazon.com for this book, chapters.ca doesn't carry this book, and schoolhouse press has this book for approximately the same price as amazon.com but indicates that the shipping costs of 10-20 dollars is not unusual. I just ordered my copy from amazon.com and the price will be 44ish canadian (42ish US), thank goodness for the good exchange rate. I'll likely be a bit late in starting because the book ships in 4-6 weeks, here is hoping they over estimated that timeline. Once I get the book I'll pick a pattern and go to the LYS so I don't have the shipping delay on the yarn too.

Yes! Thanks to the loophole philosophy I qualify on several criteria--blond, blue-eyed, etc.--PLUS my daughter spent two weeks in Sweden last year, AND my brother's in-laws run the Viking Cafe in Fergus Falls, Minnesota! I recently learned that Estonia was occasionally ruled by Danes and Swedes, and since I have found some Estonian mitten patterns in back issues of Piecework, I'm in. Now all I need is the code. Tak! Katherine

I'm glad I'm in via the Viggo category but I blocked the fact that I'm married to someone who's half Norwegian so I could have claimed that, too, without 'fessing up to star-lust. In any case, I am also html challenged; could you please e-mail me the code or tell me in words of one syllable how to do the button thing? thanks!

I'll play! Being a blue-eyed Scot should qualify me. (Good thing 'cause I don't do gross food!) I stumbled on a site with neat celtic knot-influenced sock designs some time ago and this will give me motivation to try one.

Backstory

I'm currently a stay at home mother, freelance writing on my off time, wondering how I became part of the ten thousand year old tradition of raising the kids while creating textiles.
I grew up in NE Ohio dairy country, married a sailor, lived in Hawaii ten years, lived in SC for five years, then moved back to culture shock and confusion.
Nothing but good times ahead.